Letters From Iwo Jima Movie

KAZUNARI Ninomiya's face is unblemished, almost fragile, a porcelain slate of innocence onto which director Clint Eastwood projects the emotional toll of war in "Letters From Iwo Jima." Ninomiya plays Saigo, an apolitical baker conscripted into the doomed defense of the island, fighting not for the generals or the emperor but only to survive and return to his wife and infant daughter. Through his eyes we see battle, its cynicism, fear, the hatreds and pity.

KAZUNARI Ninomiya's face is unblemished, almost fragile, a porcelain slate of innocence onto which director Clint Eastwood projects the emotional toll of war in "Letters From Iwo Jima." Ninomiya plays Saigo, an apolitical baker conscripted into the doomed defense of the island, fighting not for the generals or the emperor but only to survive and return to his wife and infant daughter. Through his eyes we see battle, its cynicism, fear, the hatreds and pity.

Clint Eastwood's World War II drama "Letters From Iwo Jima" -- a recollection of the famed 1945 battle told from the Japanese perspective -- was named best movie of the year Sunday by the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. It's the second such honor for the film in less than a week -- the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures also named "Iwo Jima" the top film of the year -- and the decisive wins make it an early front-runner for the Academy Awards.

If your first produced screenplay became what many consider a sure-thing best picture Oscar nominee directed by the legendary Clint Eastwood, you'd practically be taking out billboards on Sunset to crow about your achievement, wouldn't you? It's, uh, kind of a big deal.

When filming for "Letters From Iwo Jima" wrapped on that historic island in the Pacific, the movie's star, Ken Watanabe, scaled its dormant volcano with American members of the movie's crew. The group prayed at the cemetery atop Mt. Suribachi, which memorializes the Japanese soldiers who perished in the crucial World War II battle. Then crew members handed him two flags -- the Stars and Stripes and Japan's rising sun -- and snapped his photo.

ABOUT halfway through Clint Eastwood's new film, "Letters From Iwo Jima," Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) is shown receiving a handgun as a gift at a prewar American dinner party. It's the kind of scene that in any other filmmaker's hands would become a splashy set piece: a parade of vintage cars, scores of women in fancy dresses, a big crane shot of a magnificent hotel, elaborate trays of passed hors d'oeuvres.

If your first produced screenplay became what many consider a sure-thing best picture Oscar nominee directed by the legendary Clint Eastwood, you'd practically be taking out billboards on Sunset to crow about your achievement, wouldn't you? It's, uh, kind of a big deal.

Clint Eastwood says he wanted to make a movie about the way war intrudes and destroys young lives, and in "Letters From Iwo Jima," youth is seen sacrificed in huge, bloody, burned numbers. Japanese youth this time.

Early evening settles on a quiet suburb of spacious homes and lush lawns. Suddenly, an ominous voice pierces the tranquillity: America is about to elect the first black president of the United States. Within seconds, the streets flood with hundreds of panicked white people running from their homes. One man stops and lifts his face to the heavens, his arms outstretched, face etched with fear.

When filming for "Letters From Iwo Jima" wrapped on that historic island in the Pacific, the movie's star, Ken Watanabe, scaled its dormant volcano with American members of the movie's crew. The group prayed at the cemetery atop Mt. Suribachi, which memorializes the Japanese soldiers who perished in the crucial World War II battle. Then crew members handed him two flags -- the Stars and Stripes and Japan's rising sun -- and snapped his photo.

ABOUT halfway through Clint Eastwood's new film, "Letters From Iwo Jima," Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) is shown receiving a handgun as a gift at a prewar American dinner party. It's the kind of scene that in any other filmmaker's hands would become a splashy set piece: a parade of vintage cars, scores of women in fancy dresses, a big crane shot of a magnificent hotel, elaborate trays of passed hors d'oeuvres.

Clint Eastwood's World War II drama "Letters From Iwo Jima" -- a recollection of the famed 1945 battle told from the Japanese perspective -- was named best movie of the year Sunday by the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. It's the second such honor for the film in less than a week -- the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures also named "Iwo Jima" the top film of the year -- and the decisive wins make it an early front-runner for the Academy Awards.

Clint Eastwood says he wanted to make a movie about the way war intrudes and destroys young lives, and in "Letters From Iwo Jima," youth is seen sacrificed in huge, bloody, burned numbers. Japanese youth this time.